"In June 1810, through the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which was being divided by the Great Powers, and the Kingdom of Persia, which was protected by Seris, and then through the vassal khanates of Central Asia, I finally set foot on the long-awaited land of Seris."

"Seris and Prussia have had an unbreakable alliance for decades, but my yearning for Seris is not an extension of that relationship. When I became a fan of Professor Kant, my fate was already predestined, and I had to find my ultimate reason and complete my intellectual enlightenment in this elegant and powerful oriental civilization. Although I was commissioned by the Earl of Scharnhorst to learn from the successful experience of military reform in Seris, it was a pilgrimage for me personally. ”

"Originally, my impression of Seris was not much different from that of the world powers such as Britain and France and Austria-Hungary, but when Professor Kant published the book "The Way of Heaven and Pure Reason", I realized that Seris and Prussia were already tightly clinging to each other in soul. Professor Kant uses this book as the latest commentary in his series of three critiques[1], which illustrates the similarities and differences between Seris's idea of heaven and his philosophy of dualism, when I was just an ordinary army captain, but I felt that the path of wisdom in this life had a purpose. ”

"I long to look through the smoky, bloody battlefields to find the pure reason that governs war in the dark, in Seris's words, the way of war. In the past, I went back and forth between Ceris's "The Art of War" and the works of European military strategists on the history of war and the theory of war, and I never found my way. Professor Kant showed me the way, and that direction was in Seris. ”

"The city of Kokand, the capital of the Western Regions, is the first stop on my trip to Seris. Here I was received by Marshal Wang of the Western Regions, a descendant of the founding father of the British Dynasty, Wang Tanghe, whose attainments in cavalry tactics made me admire. This also sparked my great interest in modern cavalry. The marshal was busy with affairs and did not have time to have an in-depth exchange with me, so he introduced Li Junyang, the commander of the 90th Cavalry Division of the Royal Army. General Li introduced to me the development of Seris in modern cavalry tactics. ”

"General Lee's exchange with me lasted for a week, and I was deeply honored by his warmth and candor, as well as his humility in asking me about the development of cavalry in Europe. Your Highness, you will definitely associate this surname with it, and your guess is correct, General Li is a prince, the sixth son of the fourth emperor of the Seris Empire. It should be added that according to the royal title system of Seris. He was only able to be knighted on his deathbed after he had satisfactorily fulfilled his royal obligations and had been approved by the Royal Council, and he was still only an earl. ”

"The sons of Seris were born with the responsibility of defending the Empire, and most of them served in the military for life, and each had their own specialty, but there were very few royal generals who focused on cavalry. It is a great honor for me to have the guidance of General Lee. ”

"The exchange revolves around the changes of the Ceris cavalry, and before coming to Seris, I read some of the history of the Western Regions of Ceris, and I had many doubts. One of the questions is why the Cyris cavalry had a retro revolution before 1741. ”

"As we all know, from the late part of the last century, the modernization of cavalry was carried out in both the East and the West, and many characteristics of the infantry of the array line were introduced into the cavalry one by one. Simplifying the categories of cavalry, unifying cavalry tactics, and emphasizing overall mobility and even cavalry line tactics eliminated all kinds of cavalry in the old era with obvious regional and national characteristics in the past. From the Sai-Polish War to the Middle East War, the Seris cavalry defeated the Persian cavalry in Persia and the Mamluks in Egypt, relying on simplified modern cavalry. ”…,

"But seventy years ago, especially marked by the War of the Western Regions in 1741, the rise of the Cyris cavalry was a change that bordered on a retrospective turn. Until the seventies and eighties of the last century, the Seris cavalry was still divided into nearly ten different classes, each with a different mission, different equipment, and significantly different tactics. It was not until the nineties that the Seris cavalry began to enter the real modernization, and various types of cavalry were integrated into modern regular cavalry, with unified equipment and tactics, to undertake various tasks, and the European cavalry also began the process of modernization after the nineteenth century. ”

To this question, General Lee's answer shows that he is not only a high-ranking military officer, but also a wise sociologist. It is not the task of this letter to make General Lee's answer clear, and when I return to China, I will explain it in detail to you, Your Highness, and I will only briefly introduce it here. ”

General Li started with the basis of cavalry: horses, and he believed that the biggest difference between modern cavalry and ancient cavalry came from the production of war horses. Ancient cavalry is the horse chooses the man, while the modern cavalry is the man chooses the horse. ”

He focused on the war horse breeding system, based on technical conditions, the ancient war horse breeding system is very simple, in addition to the quantity, breeding is also a big problem. This makes it difficult for people to change the regionality of horses, such as the cold-blooded forest horse in Europe, the hot-blooded desert horse in Arabia, and the Mongolian horse in East Asia. ”

"What is the most important feature of modern cavalry? It is a high degree of unity, which can be accumulated into a huge whole, and there are no complicated categories of obstacles in training, operations, and command and dispatch. Based on such characteristics, modern cavalry can be like array line infantry, not only organized into a powerful array line cavalry, but also able to undertake a variety of complex and changeable tasks. ”

"To achieve a high degree of uniformity, it is not only a task that can be accomplished by the modern military training system, because the cavalry must not only have people, but also horses. Based on the mission of modern cavalry, the requirements for horses are much more demanding than for people. It can be said that without modern war horses, there would be no modern cavalry. ”

"Relying on the ancient war horse breeding system obviously cannot cultivate modern war horses, even if the number can meet the demand, but the category of war horses does not meet the requirements. Note that modern cavalry is a combination of the duties of the various types of cavalry in ancient times, and therefore requires a relatively balanced level of strength, endurance and handling, as well as the cost of rearing. And this is exactly what the ancient war horses did not have. Most of them are very prominent in some indicators, and some of them are very flawed. A small number of well-rounded and balanced war horses, but it is difficult to raise them on a large scale. ”

"Therefore. The search for and breeding hybrid war horses became the basis of modern cavalry, and the attempt of the Russians on the Don Hippo was an example, a suitable for mass rearing. Only a relatively balanced war horse in all aspects of ability can minimize the cost of training and use, so as to ensure that the cavalry reaches the modern level in terms of number and organization. ”

"General Li said that since the Western Regions War in 1741, the Cyris Empire has begun to cultivate horses based on sweat and blood, and now the Ceris cavalry can gallop across Europe and Asia, which is the foundation that has been laid since then."

But General Lee's in-depth explanation elevated the matter from the military level to the social level, he believed. The modern war horse breeding system is not only a change in breeding and herding technology, but also a support for the entire national system that has entered the modern society. This means that a country that is still in the old era cannot support modern cavalry, even if it has obtained modern horse breeding and sheep herding technology, as well as a modern cavalry training system. ”…,

He gave a very simple example, the ninety cavalry divisions he commanded. Also known as the Praetorian Guard, the sweat and blood horses used are not only from the Western Regions and Central Asia, but also from the Mobei grasslands of East Asia, and even Nanzhou is also an important grazing ground. In such a vast pastoral area, the main food for war horses is uniform. This allows the war horse to fight in different environments only after a short period of climate adaptation. ”

"After strict breeding, behind the massive agricultural products such as alfalfa and oats that ensure that the products are as consistent as possible, there is agriculture supported by large-scale commercial capital, and the processing, storage and transportation and other links need to be guaranteed by the modern industrial system to ensure that the war horses are fully supplied, which is the ability of modern countries."

"In the old days, moving a type of war horse to a new combat area required adapting not only to a different environment, but also to a different diet, and the mortality rate was very staggering, and the impact of the latter was even more deadly. Modern war horses have improved the adaptability of the environment in breeding, and the food needs to be guaranteed by the modernization of the whole country. ”

"General Li gave the example of infantry again, can a random person take a rifle and become a modern infantry? Obviously not, but it is also one-sided to understand only that modern infantry is an assembly line product trained with sticks in accordance with the canon. General Li believes that the modern state has made guarantees in many details, and this is why the modern infantry has been created. For example, a unified uniform, a unified equipment, and even a unified food, only through a variety of highly unified material conditions can the training canon have the effect of showing effectiveness, so as to polish people with different life backgrounds and personalities into a small screw on the war machine. And these material conditions are not what the countries of the old times could provide. ”

"General Li made a little joke, saying that if a company is barefoot, one-third of the soldiers wear straw sandals, and one-third wear leather boots, it is necessary to ensure that the company's formation is still intact at a slow marching speed of 80 paces per minute, and the courage and quality of the officers and men to overcome the obstacles are enough for them to win a heroic victory."

"At this point, I finally understand why the Cyris cavalry showed a retro trend before and after the Western War. Cavalry plays a key role in the Western Regions and Central Asian battlefields, and Cyris must vigorously develop cavalry, but the war horse and all aspects of the conditions are not yet available, so the Ceris cavalry can only take an old road first, which also makes the appearance of the Ceris cavalry complex and changeable in that era, and it seems that every type of cavalry in the world can find a shadow in the Ceris cavalry. ”

"General Li very much agrees with me, and he specifically talks about something that has never been clarified in the history of warfare, that is, why the Russian Dzungar Legion, that is, the Cossack cavalry, fled without a fight in front of the Praetorian Guards in the Western Regions War in 1741."

In 1741, Seris defeated the combined forces of Dzungaria and Russia near Luntai in the Western Regions, which established Seris's rule over the Western Regions and the collapse of the Dzungar Khanate. European military strategists paid great attention to this battle and published many books, but there are different accounts on this matter. Some people believe that Yevtyuskhin gave the order to retreat temporarily, which led to the Cossack cavalry, which was not highly skilled in tactics, to urgently change formation, and then fell into collapse. Others believe that the front commander Muravyov fled in timidity, which broke the morale of the Cossacks. ”

"I've also paid attention to this battle before, with a total of 140,000 troops participating in the battle, but the battle lasted less than four hours, and one side collapsed on all fronts. The difference in the times was evident in this battle, with the Seris side suffering no more than 1,000 casualties, including 162 killed, while the Dzungar and Cossacks suffered more than 7,000 casualties and more than 40,000 prisoners, of which the four Russian Cossack cavalry regiments suffered more than half of the casualties and captured more than 1,000 people. ”…,

The Khan of the Dzungar Khanate, Galdantse, fled in a hurry, and then fled westward into the Central Asian khanates and finally to Persia under the pursuit of the army of Seris, which also laid the groundwork for Seris's march into Central Asia. The fate of Central Asia and Persia, and even the relationship between Seri and Russia, was laid by this war. ”

"The key turning point in this battle was the unprovoked collapse of the Cossack cavalry, but in 1741, there was no in-depth military exchange between Seris and Europe, and the collision of war wisdom between the East and the West did not officially begin until the outbreak of the Nine-Year War in 1756, when Seris formed an alliance with Britain, Prussia and other countries, so no one can find out why the Cossack cavalry behaved abnormally."

"When General Lee brought in a company and showed me the classical costume of his Praetorian Cavalry, I finally understood why the Cossack cavalry fled without a fight, it was too similar, and the classical costume of the Praetorian Cavalry was too similar to the Polish hussars. The Cossacks' fear of the Polish hussars was so deep in their bones that they, of course, would turn around and run. ”

General Lee said that it was only after coming into contact with the Poles that Seris really understood this reason. The reason why the outside world is not very clear is because after that battle, the Praetorian Guard Rider no longer had the opportunity to face a large force of cavalry, so that kind of wings rarely appeared on the battlefield again, and became a ceremonial attire during military parades. ”

"The exchange with General Lee was the first valuable asset I gained since I arrived in Seris, and it also inspired me to look forward to the next trip. In July 1810, after I arrived in Luntai, I deliberately went to the ancient battlefield, and the tower of Luntai City also left a deep impression on me. It is said to have been a beacon tower at the time, and the Seris used ancient signals of endless wisdom to deliver messages to the hinterland of the empire, thousands of miles away. ”

"Your Highness, you need no longer be apprehensive about your future trip to Seris, for the acquisition of such wealth and wisdom is enough to make anyone happy from the bottom of their hearts, even you, as the crown prince of Prussia, are willing to pay any price."

"Carl? Philip? Gottfried? Feng? Clausewitz, July 11, 1810, in Wheeltai, Western Regions, Seris. ”

Seventy years later, Clausewitz wrote such a letter to his student, the Crown Prince of Prussia, in the bustling city of Luntai. Through the glass window of the hotel room where he was staying, the tower still stood steadily, as if it had not been eroded by time at all. (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation and monthly passes, and your support is my biggest motivation. )